Why is it called ‘grunge’ music?

With crews still cleaning up Seattle Center after the chaos that was the Bumbershoot Music Festival, it’s a good time to think back on Seattle’s contribution to modern music. Mostly what we’re known for is a kind of musical style made popular by bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Smells like music history

Seattle-based band Pearl Jam, circa 1993.

If you remember when grunge music first got its name, you probably weren’t there. But Seattle cultural historian Clark Humphrey attributes the first printed use of the term to musician Mark Arm, who described one of his early bands as “pure grunge! pure noise!” in rock critic Daina Darzin’s Seattle music ‘zine Desperate Times in 1981. A few years later, SubPop record founder Bruce Pavitt used the term as a kind of musical label – to describe Green River, another band featuring Mark Arm. Green River eventually split, and its members eventually recombined to form two famous exponents of the emerging ‘grunge’ sound, Mudhoney and Pearl Jam. The term “grunge” stuck, and seemed to capture the discordant sound and alienated stance of Seattle’s most innovative alternative rock musicians of the era.